RAF Bodorgon, Aberffraw

RAF Bodorgan was a grass airfield on the Isle of Anglesey in north Wales, built on land requisitioned from the Bodorgan Estate near Malltraeth and Aberffraw. It opened on 1 September 1940 under the name RAF Aberffraw and was renamed Bodorgan on 15 May 1941. Rather than a front-line bomber or fighter base, it functioned as a support and training station, and never had hard runways, operating instead from three grass strips with a mix of Blister and Bellman hangars and Nissen and Maycrete huts.

Its first task was anti-aircraft co-operation. From late 1940 the station flew radio-controlled, pilotless de Havilland “Queen Bee” target aircraft for the gunnery range at nearby Tŷ Croes; the maiden unmanned flight was made in December 1940. Units associated with the field over the war included flights of No. 1 Anti-Aircraft Co-operation Unit, Nos. 1606 and 1620 AA Co-operation Flights, No. 650 Squadron and No. 48 Maintenance Unit.

From 1941 the airfield also served as a satellite and overflow store for the Maintenance Unit at RAF Hawarden, with aircraft including up to around thirty Vickers Wellington bombers held under camouflage in the surrounding fields. The RAF gave up the site in late 1945 and the land returned to the Bodorgan Estate for farming, though some wartime structures survived for decades afterwards.